President Donald Trump will land in Riyadh this morning on his first foreign trip since taking office. He leaves behind a Washington that is in an uproar. Trump, whatever one may say about him, is a man who speaks his mind. His election rhetoric left many alarmed.

In face-to-face interviews conducted with 3,500 Arab youth aged 18-24 and with a sample split 50:50 male/female, the results that followed were an indication of the mindset of young people in the Arab world today.

Assistant Deputy Minister of Health for Transformation Dr. Rashed Al-Kawan has denied the possibility of the privatization of government hospitals and said that they will be transformed into government companies.

The situation is becoming grimmer and grimmer for expatriates as we enter the second month of amnesty. The fee for the renewal of sponsorship has gone up. Heartless sponsors are demanding more and more money and threatening to send their employees to detention centers.

I must confess that when I first read about the establishment of the General Entertainment Authority, like many others, I was skeptical about what kind of entertainment would be involved, especially as I considered the hardening of social mores over the past three decades.

The French emperor Napoleon defeated at the battle of Waterloo is said to have described Britain as “a nation of shopkeepers.” His remarks were deemed offensive by the English who after his defeat by the Duke of Wellington replied that “the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”

A report in a local paper focused on the damages inflicted on people by false accusations made to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha). Nazaha Chairman Khalid Al-Muhaisen highlighted some of the points and said that care will be taken to protect those against whom allegations have been made.

Every day glaring headlines of traffic accidents are splashed across local papers. Over the weekend there were quite a few. Everyone speaks about the abnormal high ratio of deaths in the Kingdom compared to the population. Newspapers highlight deaths on the highways but many tragic accidents go unnoticed.

And finally, it happened! An outsider has occupied the White House. After a bitter election campaign that was a first in several things including verbal duels and mudslinging, Donald Trump finally triumphed over Hillary Clinton and both Democrats and mainstream Republicans.

I have written several times both in English and Arabic about the lack of civility in our approach to daily life. The list of complaints can go on and on. What makes me return to this subject is an incident that I observed yesterday in which a driver parked his car right in the middle of the road.

It seems inevitable that in every private or public gathering with family or friends, the main focus is on complaints. And mind you, as we moan and groan, and many are quite right in doing so, we do not come up with solutions or remedies for the problems under discussion.

Some of the fears being expressed in the wake of the upset victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election may be exaggerated. But there is enough reason to worry over the rise of the far or hard right in the US and across Europe.